Connecting music, language and literature

Posted April 21, 2005; 03:06 p.m.

by Jennifer Greenstein Altmann

Senior Margaret Meyer is a professional-level opera singer who chose to
major in comparative literature — a field in which she could combine
her musical affinities, her aptitude for languages and her interest in
literature.

“I love it because you aren’t confined to one
department,” said Meyer, who came up with an unusual topic for her
senior thesis that integrates music and literature. “The major is very
much about what you want to do, so it’s hard to get bored.”

It’s
difficult to imagine Meyer becoming bored. Since she was in high
school, she has studied voice with Madame Thérèse Sevadjian, a member
of the voice and opera faculty at McGill University in Montreal. She
works with Sevadjian during school vacations, over the summer and
during occasional visits home — she lives in Peru, N.Y., an hour south
of the Canadian border — during the school year.

Meyer’s
musical achievements at Princeton include singing the lead roles in the
Chapel Choir’s production of Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors”
and in the Princeton Opera Theater’s production of Cavalli’s “La
Calisto.” She sings with the Chapel Choir and the Chamber Choir, and
played cello in Sinfonia for two years. She is earning a certificate in
vocal performance.

“Meg has a beautiful
natural instrument, great pitch and a level of musicianship that would
be expected in a more mature singer,” said Penna Rose, who conducts the
Chapel Choir.

In her senior thesis, Meyer
explores the interrelation between German composer Richard Wagner’s
series of operas “Ring of the Nibelungen” and English author J.R.R.
Tolkien’s trilogy of novels “The Lord of the Rings.”

“I
was struck by my reaction to Wagner in light of knowing ‘The Lord of
the Rings,’” she said. “I thought the two works could be illuminated by
each other. They are very different, but they pull elements from the
same mythic material.”

When Meyer first
became interested in studying Wagner, she enrolled in an introductory
German course during her sophomore year at Princeton. She had been
struggling with the pronunciation of German in connection with her
singing, and decided it would be better to undertake a formal study of
the language.

She then began exploring the
relationship between words and musical structure in opera in her junior
independent work, which was supervised by John Fleming, the Louis
Fairchild ’24 Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She
examined the interaction between music and text in Jacques Offenbach’s
“Les Contes d’Hoffmann” and Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier.”

“Her
subject was one that has been hotly debated since the 18th century,
when it was taken up by such theorists as Rousseau,” Fleming said. “The
finished paper was bold, witty, highly original and, to me,
illuminating.”

Her senior thesis builds on
that work, exploring the conflicts and ambiguities in Wagner’s opera
over questions of ultimate salvation, said Leonard Barkan, the Arthur
Marks ’19 Professor of Comparative Literature and one of Meyer’s thesis
advisers. It also examines parallel questions about Christian faith,
pagan worlds and the possibilities of salvation in “The Lord of the
Rings,” according to Barkan.

“She has come
to understand that there are ways of reading text and music both with
and against each other so as to help illuminate the problematic ending
of Wagner’s opera,” Barkan said. “The thesis is enormously promising,
and its relation to Meg’s reading and performing experience make it an
especially clear case of what comparative literature can offer.”

Meyer is hoping to enroll in a master’s degree program in vocal performance next year.